If the corporations really run America today, then isn't what is actually getting done about illegal immigration exactly what they want done?

The construction, agriculture, services, and hospitality industries within the US all employ significant numbers of illegal aliens because those workers, lacking any labor-law protections within the US, are willing to work backbreaking jobs at sub minimum-wage pay and put up with working conditions that may range from the simply uncomfortable to the downright dangerous. And there is zero risk of such workers going on strike, organizing, or complaining in any way. To do so would likely get them deported. Hiring illegals is a profitable way to outsource jobs that must be done on-shore.

So these four well-healed corporate blocks have substantial reason to reject any move toward legal status for illegals, no matter how long they have been here. The left may want this, but these corporate blocks do not. They also have no interest in seeing a mass roundup and wholesale deportation of their inexpensive and compliant workforce. The right may want this, but these corporate blocks do not. And these corporate blocks have plenty of lobbying money available to make sure that the immigration issue stays in perpetual gridlock. Move the fight to the states, and they will just buy the legislatures there too.

Am I missing something, or is that a pretty accurate picture of why immigration has been a political football now for decades, and nothing meaningful has been done to clean up the mess?

Yes. Part of the reason the government subsidizes the cost of corn & soy is to eliminate competition with farmers south of the border. Once those farms shut down b/c they can’t compete, these corporations place ads in buses and billboards ‘over there’ and pays for busses to bring illegal immigrants over here . . . b/c it’s cheaper labor, and because you’re working in an environment that lacks competition.

This was a few years ago, but my son worked for a man who employed many illegals in his constrution company. He did not offer any sort of health insurance, and paid cash to all his employees. He paid for my son’s emergency room visit in person. I wonder what he did for his illegals when they got injured.

It wasn’t legal, and I can’t imagine how he stayed ahead of the law, but it did save him a bunch of cash. His was not a large company, but still…

The area where I live has many, many factories and… many illegals. For some reason, the Lutherans love bringing Somali refugees here, who in turn, bring their extended families. Minnesota give some kind of lucrative tax breaks to legal immigrants, but that doesn’t mean their family members are legal.